Are you missing important Windows updates?

Windows Update is supposed to keep Windows on your PC bang up to date with all the latest bug fixes, latest versions, and security patches. However, you might be missing some important updates. Check now!

You may be thinking that if you have set Windows Update to automatically download and install updates then surely you have them all. For various reasons, this may not be the case and you might have some, but not all updates.

The problem is that Windows Update only installs the update it considers to be essential. There are other updates that are available, but if they are not thought to be needed, they are not automatically downloaded and installed.

The updates that are not installed are called optional ones and they could fix faults you are having with your computer. On the other hand, they might not be needed and they have no effect at all. It is usually better to install them though.

To check for missing Windows Updates, left click the Start button (Windows 7) or right click it (Windows 8.1) and select Control Panel. Select either Small Icons or Large Icons in the View by menu in the top right corner and then click Windows Update.

Here you can see that this PC is configured for Windows 10 when it becomes available. To do this you click the Get Windows 10 icon that appears at the right hand side of the taskbar.

Click Check for updates on the left to see if there are any updates available. You may well find that you end up back at the same screen and nothing has changed. Don’t worry, click the link, Show all available updates.

If there is an Optional tab, select it and there may be one or more Windows updates. Sometimes it is not clear what an optional update does. Scroll down the panel on the right and click the link that is at the bottom. This opens a web browser and shows a page on the Microsoft website that has more information.

Select the update(s) and click the Install button at the bottom.

After the update has been downloaded and installed, the computer might need to be restarted. If you have any programs or documents open, click them all first and then click the Restart button.

Don’t forget to check for optional updates every so often. Set a date in your calendar, such as the first of the month and manually run Windows update and show all the updates.